Flavio Biondo, an Italian humanist, in the early 15th Century, first coined the term “Middle Age” (”medium ævum”) to designate the period between the Classical and the enlightened Renaissance revival of classical ideas, philosophies, aesthetics. In English, Dutch, Russian and Icelandic, the plural form of the term, Middle Ages, is used, however, other European languages use the singular form (Italian medioevo, French le moyen âge, German das Mittelalter.) The popular word we use commonly today, “medieval”, is a contraction of the Latin medium ævum or “middle epoch”. Enlightenment thinkers used it as a pejorative descriptor of the Middle Ages. The Middle Ages would come to be viewed as a Dark Age during which many of the advances and achievements of the Greeks and Romans would be eclipsed by warfare and the gradual disintegration of institutions and culture that the Europeans had inherited from the Classical era.
The beginning of the Medieval period is introduced with the fall of the Roman Empire, when in 476 C.E., the emperor was driven from his throne by barbarian invaders. The dissolution of the once expansive and powerful Roman Empire allowed for the formation of tiny kingdoms throughout Europe vying for territory. There was great instability as a result of such fragmentation and ongoing invasions and infighting bewteen tribes such as the Vikings, Visigoths, and Gauls, as well as the Moors began to change the nature of European life. 
A lack of centralized political power in the greater region gave the Catholic Church tremendous power and civilian life - in terms of cultural growth, education, literacy, political involvement, and commerce - was in many ways truncated by an era of conflict and unenlightened dogma. With lawlessness and warfare widespread, community became focused around small powers, nobles or kings, who established control of land and created feudal systems by which to garner work from the peasant-class in exchange for access to land and protection from marauding tribes.
The knight-errant was a figure chosen from the nobility and representative of military life under the medieval feudal system, emerging towards the end of the eleventh century. With the knight came an era of parade and pageantry and courtly ceremony that would usher in new fashions, largely drawing on styles and textiles from distant and exotic places.
The knights, who evolved their presentation during the period of the Crusades,would travel to the Middle East and return with rich silks and Arab designs. The gowns drawn from Arab designs were longer, billowing with fabric and detailed with intricate weavings and embroidery and gold threading. The knights learned to dress their horses as ornately as themselves with protective coats of cloth matching their own garbs.
The Crusaders also returned from the East with the custom of painting their shields with their colors and coats of arms. This began the fashion for heraldry and emblazoning one’s symbols on not only one’s own outer coat (surcoat) but also introducing women to the fashion of wearing coats of arms on their gowns. Certain terms of heraldry themselves were taken from the vocabulary of costume and tailoring– ‘couped’ (cut), ‘bend’ (sash), for example.
By the middle of the twelfth century, heraldry and the use of symbols designating one’s affiliations were widespread. Suits of armor were made entirely in the colors of the knight’s blazon (the description of the coat of arms) or the knight’s lady’s blazon. Furthermore, the significance of the colors and emblems one wore were such that relationships could be demarcated through them. The livery (non-military uniform or costume detailed with a particular emblem) worn by a person would tell a viewer that he/she was a servant, follower, or ally of the person who had gifted the uniform or piece of costume. ‘Livery’ came from the French word ‘livree’ or ‘delivered’ and the types of livery passed on to one’s servants and allies would have elements of the giver’s heraldry, often dipslayed on metal or embroidered badges.
SOURCE: the image displayed is the right panel of the Wilton Diptych, circa 1400,where the angels are shown wearing the livery of King Richard II of England–the white hart (deer).
Tags: costume, courtly cermony, crusader, crusades, fashion, Fashion History, feudal system, heraldry, knights, livery, medieval europe, pageantry, uniform
